Reality check: Know Your Food

Guess what? It’s not the sugar, additives or palm oil that tastes good in hazelnut spreads - it’s the hazelnuts. You can do without the rest.

Pretty straightforward, no?

Here's where we got the numbers. One of the world's most famous chocolate-hazelnut spreads is made with 13% hazelnuts, 8.7% skim milk powder, 7.4% reduced-fat cacao. The first two ingredients, however, are sugar and palm oil, with no percentage - but since ingredients in lists have to be named in decreasing order of quantity, they both make up more than 13% of the recipe.

First up, the sugar. According to the Nutritional Facts, sugars add up to 11g for every 19g serving. Sure, there's some naturally-present sugars in hazelnuts, but that's still close to 55% sugar. As for the oil, it's just basic math. If we add up all of the known ingredients, we end up with a remaining 15% - that's your oil, emulsifiers and vanillin.

And really, that's what it boils down to: as far as we're concerned, if you want to know exactly what you’re eating, grab the jar that contains what it advertises, not the one with more oil than hazelnuts.

And if you miss that little chocolatey kick, you can use it to make your own healthy, palm oil-free, refined sugar-free version with just a few wholesome ingredients - and we think our homemade chocolate-hazelnut spread recipe is the best!